Most experts will argue that there’s no such thing as rum season, but it’s hard to argue against a desire to reach for the sugarcane-distilled spirit when the summer heat is weighing down on your shoulders—in a classic daiquiri, refreshing mojito, or even rolling around in a Glencairn glass while you enjoy the A/C.
How you drink it is beside the point—just make sure that you’ve got the best quality liquid that you can. Below are some of the best new and classic rums to consider grabbing right now—and what to do with them once they’re on your bar—while the last month of summer ticks away.
Brugal Colección Visionaria Edición 03
A lot of the people I speak to about rum either have no frame of reference for the Brugal brand or know it only for its low-proof domestic rums that sip a little more like liqueurs than liquors. They’re missing out on some of the best rums on the market today.
Brugal has done amazing things with its distiller collections and limited editions recently, and the most interesting of those to date is Colección Visionaria Edición 03, also known as “Coconut.” Coconut is not a coconut-flavored rum, but rather a rum aged to highlight the coconut flavors that can be pulled naturally from oak barrels. The resulting rum is creamy, with a nice balance of background tannins, and smacks of vanillas, wood spices, and a surprisingly distinct note of coconut water. Sip with your full attention focused on this one, lest you miss out on the nuance of craftsmanship. 90 Proof/$70
Mount Gay Exceptionally Aged 25
It’s true that age is just a number, and in the rum world in particular, that number often means less than it would appear to mean. And yet, the exception to those maxims is the new Mount Gay Exceptionally Aged 25-year release. Unlike some rums, Mount Gay 25 is aged for a minimum of 25 years. The barrels that make up this rum come from a distillation in 1999 under another master blender before being selected and prepared for bottling by current Master Blender Trudiann Branker.
The resulting spirit is struggling under the sheer weight of its flavors—rich, deep, and dark. Mount Gay 25 layers dark chocolate and raisin against red fruit and citrus. It’s dripping with vanilla and caramel, but dry enough to tease baking spices, gingerbread, and cinnamon before a silky finish. Whiskey lovers will finally have a reason to convert after this one. 94 Proof/$200
Planteray XO 20th Anniversary
The folks at Planteray (also known as Stade and formerly known as Plantation) have bottled some of the best rums in the world for the better part of the last decade. But before you explore what they’ve bottled in their single barrel programs—Peruvian distillates, casks from Panama, etc.—the best starting point in the portfolio is the 20th anniversary XO blend.
Initially released to honor 20 years of master blender Alexandre Gabriel, XO 20th Anniversary is aged in two places: first in Barbados, and then in the southwest of France in ex-cognac casks in cooler cellars. The result is a crowd-pleasing rum that’s the perfect bridge for the spiced and gold rum lovers to make the leap away from the flavored stuff out there. Big caramel notes and rich fruits don’t fully overshadow a dry-ish backbone, and yet it still has the softness and sweetness to play nice in mixed drinks and classic cocktails. Once you’re bored of this one (it may or may not happen), look to the rest of the portfolio, and enjoy your ride. 80 Proof/$65
Palm Republic Silver
Palm Republic wasn’t supposed to be the only silver rum on this list, but there weren’t many others that came to mind with as interesting a story. The Eric-Winter-founded brand features just silver and aged options at the moment, but both start their journey with a blend of stock rums from different countries.
Palm Republic silver weaves Jamaican rum with rum from the U.S. Virgin Islands, balancing funk with fresh cane, and working in layers of creamy flavors like banana and vanilla. It’s sippable over ice, but it does some really nice things in classic tiki drinks, particularly alongside pineapple and coconut flavors. As for the mojito crowd, it’s a perfect fit as long as you want your rum to have character. And you should always want that. 90 proof/$45
Don Q Double Cask Finish Cognac
Cognac finishes are unusual in the rum world (with the notable exception above), but then Don Q is unusual in more ways than one. The brand claims to be led by the oldest female blender in the country (with five decades of experience), and it’s her expertise that wove together multiple rums aged 5-8 years to make the base blend that then spent 2 years in ex-cognac casks.
The resulting rum is both brighter and drier than you might expect, with little white grape and stone fruit flavors over a deeper oak baseline. It’s an interesting option for the mixologist to experiment with—Double Cask Cognac can play ball with the Old Fashioned, the Crusta, and a bunch of other classic cocktails that don’t typically feature rum—but taste it neat before you decide if you want to “waste” a liquid this rare by mixing it with anything. 99 Proof/$80
Ron del Barrilito Three Stars
Ron del Barrilito is a house that makes many incredible rums, but it would be a lie to say they don’t have one particular expertise: sherry finishes. Ron del Barrilito Three Stars is perhaps the best example of it—a blend of rums aged 6-10 years in sherry barrels before being blended with the intended profile. The resulting spirit is more than enough to qualify for the “sherry bob” moniker often given to sherry-finished whiskeys, but unlike those spirits, this one has some other tricks up its sleeve.
Oaky, nutty, and overflowing with dried fruit, Three Stars is the closest thing to the syrupy character of other molasses-derived rums that you can get without, well, going “full molasses.” While the deep, raisiny, fruitcake notes of this rum make for absolutely decadent sipping, a Three Stars daiquiri can be an unexpected treat. Barrilito’s deep, raisin-y sweetness actually adds a lot of complex fruit flavors to the cocktail. Sherry just brings depth to the drink in ways that ex-bourbon casks don’t, and it plays beautifully against the tang of fresh lime juice. 86 Proof/$44